A Good Old-Fashioned Cowboy Read online

  “Yes,” Charity said, “but there’s a reason I drive back to Jasper Creek and...and Hope, you need a change.”

  Charity neatly turned the topic back to Hope, and Hope was just miserable enough to allow it, rather than press her friend for more details on her own situation.

  “I need more than a change,” Hope said. “I need a new everything.”

  “Why dream?” Kit asked, standing abruptly. “Seriously? Why dream? Why not do it?”

  “You’re going to...leave New York?” Pru asked, skeptical.

  “My apartment is the size of a closet, and I work so much I can barely enjoy any of the perks of being there.”

  “You realize this is insane,” Pru said, and yet again, Pru’s love of accomplishing the insane was apparent, even in her scathing tone.

  “Well, so are we,” Kit said. “Historically.”

  “I might have already found a place to rent,” Charity said. “It’s the cutest farmhouse you’ve ever seen.”

  * * *

  “YOU DIDN’T ONLY get fish,” Pru said, bringing her back to the moment. “You got your wedding dress.”

  Hope groaned. “Well, who cares? It doesn’t fit me now because the minute he jilted me I started eating carbs again and haven’t stopped. That gown was for a woman who was going to be in the society pages, stared at and judged by a braying mob of old-money elites.” Just saying that made her feel a profound sense of relief. That she was here, and they were there. And it was all...behind her now.

  She’d followed her dreams. Not her broader life dreams but the dreams she’d been having before the wedding. Which was...maybe stupid. But it had brought a sense of relief, a sense of peace that nothing else had.

  Her phone chimed from her pocket, the sound like nails on the chalkboard of said peace.

  “Is your mom still texting you?” Kit asked.

  “Um. Well, yes.” Her mom and dad had retired to Maui a few years ago—how nice for them—and her mom hadn’t gotten on a plane to check on her well-being but she had been sending a lot of messages.

  So had everyone, though most had been less judgmental than the ones that had come from her mother.

  The steady stream of messages she’d gotten since she had been jilted and also lost her mind and moved away from her friends and her life in Chicago was...intense.

  She pulled her phone partway out of her pocket and saw that the banner said Mom.

  No. Not right now. She couldn’t deal.

  “We got to keep our bridesmaid dresses too,” Charity said, as if that was an added bonus.

  “Do you have a lot of occasions to wear lilac gowns?” Hope asked. “That look like a tangle of netting you might find on a beach?”

  Lilac. She didn’t even like lilac. Her nearly-mother-in-law liked it and said it looked great on Henrietta, her nearly-sister-in-law and thus the railroading had begun.

  “I could cut it way above the knee and go stand on the corner of Main Street in town and try to attract customers to our shops,” Pru said.

  “Prudence,” Hope said, because she knew Pru hated her full name. “That is shocking.”

  “What will be shocking,” Pru said, lifting her marshmallow near her face and squeezing it gently to test it, “is if we don’t get these shops open by the Jasper Creek centennial and our rent ends up going so high I wouldn’t be able to pay for it even if I did stand on the street corner, and our dreams will end before they’ve even started.”

  “Ah!” Hope said with mock brightness. “A metaphor for my almost-wedding.”

  “While you know I find grimness to be the little black dress of emotions,” Kit said, “I hate to see you wearing it all the time.”

  “I’m fine, Katherine.” Hope stared into the flames and ignored the stinging in her eyes. “I just need sugar. And to not think about it. Let’s talk about the shops, please.”

  The shops at least were a good thing. One very good thing happening in her life.

  “Then let’s move to the living room,” Charity said. “I need a couch.”

  “Does anyone want a salmon snack?” Hope asked, pulling her marshmallow from the flame and blowing on it before tearing into it with savage relish.

  “No,” they all answered, getting up from the fire and assuming long-held roles.

  Pru made sure it was dead out with water and a shovel. Charity collected chairs. Kit grabbed the food. It made Hope’s heart feel too big for her chest.

  These girls had been a constant in her life since childhood, and they’d been distant these last few years because of life and geography but they were here.

  They weren’t the ones messaging her, or offering fake sympathy.

  They’d rallied.

  They’d gathered.

  And they were showing her how to dream again.

  They’d given up their lives—and while they had their own reasons, her misery had been the trigger point for them. And here they were, sitting around a fire with her, no judgment, just lots of sugar and warm memories.

  “I made fudge,” Hope said, as they headed toward the house.

  “That we will take,” Kit said.

  As her friends went into the house and to the living room, Hope detoured into the kitchen to grab her pan of fudge and pour herself a cup of hot water from the kettle, dunking a tea bag into it before joining everyone.

  It was a warm, well-lived-in room that had a sense of history from the walls down to the floorboards.

  From her pocket, her phone dinged again.

  “Silence your cell phone,” Pru said.

  “Fine,” she said, digging in her pocket and taking it out as she set the fudge on the coffee table.

  “All right,” Pru said, standing. Which surprised Hope not at all. Pru was a big one for taking charge and making pronouncements. “The first meeting of our Main Street Renovation Coalition has come to order.”

  “I am philosophically opposed to meetings that could’ve been emails,” Kit said.

  “I’m tired of meetings in general,” Charity said.

  “Too bad,” Pru said. “We have to make sure we’re on the same page. Or I’m liable to just start painting the shops lemon yellow. I like yellow right now. If you leave the walls unpainted I may have to paint.”

  “They’re brick,” Kit said, deeply shocked.

  “I’m just saying. It would benefit us to be on the same page.”

  “Yes,” said Charity. “My official medical opinion is that lemon yellow walls are a health hazard.”

  Hope’s phone buzzed and she saw her mom had texted again and she looked down at the phone, typing a response as quick as she could. She knew Pru was still talking.

  “House rules,” Pru said. “I think we need some house rules. Boundaries.”

  Hope looked up. “What?”

  “House rules,” Pru repeated, looking at her with grave concern.

  “We’ll get to house rules in a bit,” Kit said. “I think the first order of business is making a pact that whatever happens, we don’t kill each other. Friendship is more important than anything. Even stores.”

  “The pact is why we’re here,” Hope said, glancing back at her phone. And then she sighed. “A pact is what got me out of my past life, and I am deeply grateful for it. So actually, yes. Let’s make a pact. That we remember why we started this. Because we want to do something we love. I want to sell candy. Because as much as young Hope wanted to escape Jasper Creek and see the bright lights of the big city, she also really loved sweets. And she really loved this town, even if she couldn’t admit it.”

  “Are you going to talk about yourself in the third person the whole time?” Kit asked. “Because I left publishing, and I’m no longer working with authors. So my patience for that is done.”

  “You know what I mean,” Hope said. “I want to get back to where my lif
e was not a disaster. And that was somewhere here. I thought I knew what I wanted but I didn’t. And nothing made that clearer than when my relationship blew up and there was nothing to stay for. I lived in Chicago for twelve years and I didn’t feel like I wanted to stay when the wedding collapsed. That says everything there is to say about that life. It was just everything moved so fast I was sucked into it. I was sucked into...hustling. And being involved with people who mattered and fancy lunches and...”

  And suddenly her mind was back to evenings spent in the bed of a pickup truck, with ill-gotten beer and a cowboy...

  “What?” Kit asked, eyeing her too keenly.

  “What?” Hope repeated.

  “You got dreamy.”

  “Oh, I...it’s just... I don’t know. I think it’s nostalgia. It’s being here. It’s making me miss things. Want things.”

  “You have to be careful with nostalgia,” Pru said. “It’s how you end up with bangs, even though you already know you hate them.”

  Kit glared at Pru from beneath her own bangs.

  “I don’t want bangs,” Hope said. “I want to feel...happy again. Everything I was in Chicago I want to be...not that. I want... I want to walk barefoot through the grass and go to small-town parades and...” Brooks. No. She would not mention her ex-boyfriend’s name. It wasn’t about Brooks anyway. “I might want to make out with a country boy.”

  Kit looked suddenly wistful. “I do miss men whose hands aren’t more manicured than my own. Which you can’t see from an online dating app.”

  Charity frowned. “Oh, those are the worst.”

  “They sound the worst,” Hope said. “I’ve been in a relationship for years, and I’ve never had to do it and...and I don’t want to. I don’t want to meet a man in my phone.” She brandished the device. “I’m sick of fake connections and technology. I want something real. Cold beer and rough hands and...”

  Why was it Brooks that she saw?

  Her first love.

  “We lost you again,” Pru said.

  “My point is,” she said, trying to root herself to the moment and not to memories of Sullivan Brooks and his magic hands. “Modern life has failed me. My pursuits have failed me. I was about to make the worst decision of my life. I was about to get married to a man who organized his sweaters by color and got me less hot than an average sexy dream.”

  Kit frowned deeply, looking her up and down as if she were ill. “That’s a cry for help, Hope. The fact that you never mentioned that is telling.”

  “Well, I wasn’t...letting myself realize it. And up until the wedding I was having these dreams—these fantasies—about home—Jasper Creek–home, not Chicago—and other men—” just one man, but she wasn’t admitting that “—and it was a sign, and I nearly missed it! Well, no more. Now, when the universe speaks, I will listen. Because Lord knows I should not be making my own decisions. The universe should make my decisions for me.”

  Hope stood up, and as she did, a large, fat magazine fell off a nearby shelf with a thunk. She must have disturbed the shelf, she rationalized, even though she was pretty sure she hadn’t touched anything. But there it was. An old-fashioned magazine with a date stamp on it that read 1945. A women’s magazine with a pair of smiling girls with their hair in victory rolls and dresses that went down past their knees.

  The cover proudly proclaimed that this particular issue held secrets.

  50 Ways to Catch—and Keep—a Man!

  Well, ten points to the universe.

  “This is how people used to do it,” Hope said, bending down and picking it up. And as she did, an odd sensation passed over her skin. Goose bumps rising up on her arms. She brushed it off. “Maybe this magazine holds the secrets to all our problems.”

  She opened the page up and howled with laughter.

  “Oh my gosh, look at this. ‘Foolproof Tips to Land Yourself a Husband.’ And there are sections: How to Find Him, How to Land Him, How to Keep Him, How to Love Him.”

  “Is that last one sexy?” Pru asked.

  “It’s 1945,” Hope said. “I think sexy was showing the seam of your silk stocking.” She looked back down at the magazine. “Wear a Band-Aid on your face. People always ask what happened! Join an outdoors club; men like a woman who isn’t afraid of nature.” She looked up at her friends. “Get a dog.”

  “Are those real?” Kit asked.

  “Yes,” Hope said. “Deeply real. Wear a wedding dress! What better way to show you’re ready and willing!”

  “Well, there you go, Hope,” Pru said. “Maybe that’s how far back you need to go to fix your life. Modern dating hasn’t worked. Anyway, you have the dress already.”

  “It hasn’t worked for any of you either.” They all grumbled. “It’s true.”

  “But you’re...sad,” Charity said.

  Hope frowned. “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that! I meant that you’re all unhappy. And I don’t want you to be unhappy. We don’t want you to be unhappy.”

  Suddenly she was very aware of the pity aspect of it all. Yes, they were all here for their own reasons, whether they were sharing them or not. But it was all for her benefit, and while that was deeply supportive it also suggested...well, a high level of feeling very sorry for her.

  But she felt...somewhat sorry for herself and as much as it was a low moment it was also...they were here with her.

  One for all, all for one, as they always were. Always had been.

  “Have you all been talking about me?”

  Pru nodded. “Yes. Out of grave concern for you because that two-timing blue-bellied skink wasted enough years of your life and you deserve to be happy.”

  “I’m happy. I’m here. I’m with you guys.” Her phone buzzed. “It’s fine.”

  “What if,” Kit said. “You draw a tip every day. It will be your way of consulting the universe, and perhaps getting some country-boy action.”

  Pru laughed and Charity bit her bottom lip. “Well,” Charity said, “that’s one way of shaking things up.”

  “Hey, if I do it, we all have to do it,” Hope said.

  “Why?” Pru asked. “I’m not looking for a man.”

  “It’s not about looking for a man,” Hope said. “It’s about spontaneity. If we’re going big, if we’re making changes, let’s make changes.” She could sense growing skepticism around her, but these tips had amused her more than anything had for days and it felt like something—an opportunity, a sign, she didn’t know what. She didn’t really think she’d find a man—and honestly, for anything other than pleasure, she didn’t want one. But it reminded her of simple games they’d played as kids. Of slumber parties when they’d laughed till their sides ached. Nostalgia. And okay, maybe it would be bad bangs. But maybe it would be just what she needed. What they needed.

  “I propose,” Hope said, “that if any of us break a house rule, we have to draw a tip.”

  “There are no house rules yet,” Kit pointed out.

  “There will be,” Pru said, giving her a determined look.

  “I volunteer to write them down,” Kit said, producing a notebook out of the folds of her scarf. It was clear that Kit had accepted the turning tide and figured she’d position herself to be at the forefront.

  “Just because you write them down doesn’t mean you’ll be exempt from them,” Pru said, clearly sensing the same.

  Kit shot her a penetrating glare. “I would never think such a thing, Prudence.”

  “You would,” Pru said. “And since I can feel you trying to do so, I say that the first house rule is that anyone who says ‘the city,’ meaning New York City, as though it is the only city in the entire world, must draw a penalty dating tip.”

  Hope took her phone out again and started surfing through her messages while her friends continued to talk. The conversation became fuzzy around the edges.<
br />
  “It is the only city in the world,” Kit said. “The one true city.”

  “The ruling stands,” Charity announced.

  “No cell-phone dating,” Pru said.

  “Easy,” Kit said.

  “No cell phones at all,” Charity said.

  “What?” Hope’s head popped up.

  “No cell phones. If you use one, before the Grand Opening of the Main Street shops, then you earn a penalty.”

  Pru nodded slowly. “We have a lot of work to do. Cell phones are a distraction.”

  “But also can be helpful,” Kit said. “What if I need to look up a video of a parakeet playing the piano?”

  “You’re actually reinforcing my point.”

  Hope’s phone kept vibrating and suddenly, she wanted this. All of it. Her parents were texting and texting and if she wanted change—real change—she needed to disconnect. Detach. And suddenly it was all clear. Maybe it was another message. Just like the magazine. “They’ll go in the safe,” she said. “I saw one down in the basement below the shops. Phones in the safe.”

  “Why?” Kit asked.

  “Because,” Charity stood up, looking at Hope, then back at Pru and Kit. “We are here together. We are trying to recapture something. Find the joy of...life. And back when we used to have...joy. And life. We didn’t have smartphones. Hope can’t focus because she’s so busy handling the drama.”

  Hope looked down at her phone, her throat getting dry. “Yes. I need to be done with it. I need a break. A clean break. This is...we were happy here. We were happy back then.”

  Everyone looked at her.

  “We’re in this together,” Charity said.

  “I don’t really care,” Kit said.

  She clearly did care a little, but wouldn’t go against a group mandate, not in the end.

  “I can do it,” Pru said, looking down at her phone. “It’s just a phone.”

  She clearly didn’t feel like it was just a phone, but would never admit it, because Pru would never act like something was hard.

  “Then it’s settled,” Hope said. “Tomorrow we disconnect. No phones.”